Selyse and Stannis have a single daughter, Princess Shireen Baratheon. The rest of Selyse and Stannis' offspring, Petyr, Tommard, and Edric, were all stillborn. She keeps their bodies in crystal containers filled with chemicals in her chambers.

Queen Selyse is present at the ritual burning of the statues of the Seven on the shores of Dragonstone, standing at the side of her husband and King. When Stannis pulls the flaming Lightbringer from one of the statues, she kneels alongside the rest of the worshippers of the Lord of Light. After the ceremony is over, Stannis extends his hand and Selyse rises to her feet to walk after him.[2]

Melisandre notes that Selyse has failed to give Stannis a son, only stillborn boys, and that Selyse is sickly and often confined to her tower at Dragonstone.[3]

Depressed following his defeat at the Battle of the Blackwater, Stannis visits Selyse for the first time since returning from the battle. He finds her in her chamber, praying over a fire to the Lord of Light: Selyse is a fanatical believer in the Lord of Light religion, far more so than Stannis, and it was indeed Selyse who first invited Melisandre to Dragonstone. Stannis and Selyse do not have a loving relationship, but she reveres and is in awe of him as her king and the Lord's Chosen. She tells him not to despair despite his defeat, and he will be victorious, but he laments that he used to believe that once. Due to his extreme belief in duty, (unlike his hedonistic brother Robert) Stannis is badly shaken by the fact that he broke his marriage vows to Selyse, when he had sex with Melisandre to create the Shadow-assassin creature that killed Renly. He begins to confess to Selyse that he has sinned and shamed her, but she interrupts him and says Melisandre already told her everything - and that no act done in service of the Lord of Light can be a sin. Indeed, she wept for joy when Melisandre told her of this service she did for the Lord of Light with Stannis, and because the Red Priestess gave him a "son" (of sorts) which she never could. Stannis' face is filled with a mix of shock, disgust, and relief. Selyse had three sons with Stannis but they were all stillborn, and she walks over to a corner of her chamber where she keeps their tiny corpses preserved in glass jars. The deaths of her "sweet boys" and failure to produce a male heir deeply affected Selyse, and caused her to zealously embrace the foreign religion of the Lord of Light. She weeps, and laments that she has given Stannis nothing - he does not blame her, and with pity he says that's not true. Selyse understands he is referring to their daughter and only child, Princess Shireen Baratheon. She grows annoyed when she realizes he's come to see her too, and says he shouldn't waste time on such distractions, but insists that she is his daughter, and she relents because it is not her place to question her king.[5]

In the books

In A Song of Ice and Fire, Selyse is Stannis' wife. They have a single child, their daughter Shireen. Selyse is tall and thin with sharp features, has the large ears typical of the Florents and is not considered attractive. She is a fanatical believer of the Lord of Light, and places great trust in Melisandre. Indeed, Selyse was actually the first member of Stannis' household that Melisandre converted to the eastern religion. This extends to the point that those of Stannis' followers who take up worship of the Lord of Light are nicknamed "Queen's Men", referring to Selyse - though some use this in a disparaging sense, referring to Melisandre as the "Queen", to point out that Stannis follows her counsel more closely than that of his wife. It is uncertain whether Selyse is aware that Stannis had sexual encounters with Melisandre.

There is no mentioning in the novels that Selyse ever gave birth to stillborn boys, nor that she is sickly and often confined to her tower.